In a last-ditch bid to avoid 12 years behind bars, the alleged ringleader of a racially motivated Election night rampage on Staten Island's North Shore wants to take back his guilty plea.

Fort Wadsworth resident Ralph Nicoletti is slated to be sentenced this afternoon in Brooklyn federal court to a dozen years in prison for his role in attacking African-Americans in the borough in retaliation for Barack Obama's Nov. 4 election victory as the nation's first black president.

Nicoletti, then 18, and three other North Shore men assaulted three victims in Stapleton and Port Richmond. They mistook one victim, Ronald Forte, a white man, for black, because he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Another victim, Alie Kamara, then 17, with beaten with a metal pipe.

In a letter dated Sunday, Nicoletti's lawyer, Robert P. LaRusso, said his client accepted a plea deal in February because he believed Forte, now 39, had suffered "permanent brain damage." Nicoletti ran down Forte with his car in Port Richmond.

The victim was in a coma for 45 days and survived with brain damage, prosecutors said.

He pleaded guilty six days later to a misdemeanor count of stolen-property possession and was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge, said a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan.

LaRusso said Nicoletti accepted the plea deal and the "substantial" prison term in part, because of the severity of Forte's injuries.

"With foreknowledge that Mr. Forte was not suffering from 'permanent brain damage,' Mr. Nicoletti would neither have executed the plea agreement nor accepted such an agreed-upon prison sentence," the attorney wrote.

Despite his requests, LaRusso said federal prosecutors have not supplied medical records regarding Forte's current mental and physical condition.

In a letter to the court on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Pamela K. Chen and Margo K. Brodie contended a 12-year sentence is "justified and appropriate."

Nicoletti, they said "unilaterally" decided to hit Forte with the car, distinguishing his conduct from his three co-defendants.

The trio -- Brian Carranza of Port Richmond, Michael Contreras of Fort Wadsworth and Bryan Garaventa of Rosebank have also pleaded guilty to a charge of racially motivated interference with voting rights. Carranza was 21 at the time of the incident, Contreras and Garaventa were each 18.

Carranza is also slated to be sentenced this afternoon in Brooklyn federal court.